Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 now has microtransactions, and they’re very expensive

Microtransactions have launched on the PS4 version of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 — they’re coming to Xbox One and PC next week.

We knew they were coming, but didn’t know exactly when, and didn’t know the PS4’s seven day exclusively for DLC would extend to microtransations.

COD Points can be bought with real money and used to acquire “Nebulium Plasma in Zombies, advance through cosmetic Black Market Tiers, and access new Special Orders in the Black Market,” Treyarch announced on Reddit.

That was an interesting platform to make the announcement, as the Reddit community was quick to equate the slow progression in Black Ops 4 with the launch of microtransactions.

This post suggests Tier 200 can either be acquired by grinding away for more than 250 hours, or spending over $200 USD in COD Points. It speculates that buying just the base Black Market Tier and Seasonal Events content will cost $1400 USD per year, and would exceed $3500 USD if you were to buy absolutely everything, which is impossible to unlock just by playing, in addition to the $99.95 AUD game and $64.95 AUD season pass.

Once you reach the highest tier in the Operation First Strike stream — Tier 200 — 25 more tiers unlock called Black Operations and they’re all Reserves. (@RaidAway) https://t.co/H4frocx93d pic.twitter.com/l9V1EEjvJ5

— CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) October 31, 2018

However, while this is considerably more expensive than previous Call of Duty games, this is all cosmetic. You can’t buy better guns or perks with COD Points, which are unlocked through level progression.

We were able to find them on the US PS Store, but not the Australian Store this morning. The lowest quantity 200 points costs $1.99 USD, the more useful 1,100 points costs $9.99 USD, while the maximum 13,000 points costs a whopping $99.99 USD. We’ll update Australian pricing when it becomes available.

Black Ops 4 is out now on PS4, Xbox One and PC. Black Ops Pass owners receive 1,000 COD Points as part of their purchase and everyone can receive 500 COD Points by linking their profile to the Call of Duty companion app.